1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to system and method for data exploration and systems incorporating the present invention. Specifically, the present invention relates to a method and system for visualizing and exploring 3D or 4D volumetric data and systems incorporating the present invention.
2. Description of Related Art
Three-dimensional (3D) imaging data are often obtained in the form of slices. Such slices can be examined to peek through the dense 3D textural space. For example, in medical imaging, one can observe a cross section of a body by examining a corresponding image slice. In addition, volume scans of multiple phases and/or time-sequence volumes have become increasingly popular in studying structural dynamics. The availability of such tremendous amounts of data makes it very difficult if not impossible for interested parties to make the best use of such information. Extracting useful information from data in a higher dimensional space through examining individual 2D slices often requires special skills. Tools have been developed to assist exploration of 3D or 4D data. Although modem volume rendering techniques have provided much improvement, no tool has offered an intuitive and easy way to assist a user to explore 3D/4D data by effectively navigating through slices in a 3D or 4D space.
Medicine is a field where 3D or even higher dimensional data is commonly used. Some modem medical software packages are capable of presenting a plurality of viewing windows for 2D images and permitting a user to view slices from an arbitrary angle. Other more advanced systems support a 3D view window where 3D objects can be rendered. However, one can only visualize 3D data in such a 3D window without being able to edit the 3D data. In addition, such systems do not provide correlation between presented 2D slices and 3D data. As a consequence, a user often needs to switch back and forth between a 3D object and 2D views, which may cause interruptions not only to the user's attention but also the underlying workflow. In addition, when multiple volumes are present, it is even more difficult, with conventional tools, to explore 4D data in an intuitive and coherent manner. Furthermore, in the medical domain, it is sometimes important to fuse information contained in multiple volumes in order to detect any anomaly. For example, the intensity pattern in an image or volume of a liver lesion usually changes over time. To reach a correct diagnosis, it is crucial to be able to observe and correlate such intensity changes across different volumes. It may also be important to fuse information from different volumes to derive integrated evidence to assist diagnostic decision making. Unfortunately, conventional systems do not provide tools that enable a user to do so.